Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
1
Format development and retail change: supermarket retailing and the London
Co-operative Society
Andrew Alexander
School of Management
University of Surrey
Guildford
GU2 7XH
UK
Email: [email protected]
Telephone +44 (0)1483 689665
This is an author copy of a paper published in Business History, Vol. 50, Number 4,
489-508 (2008). As such its format may differ from the final version published in
the journal.
2
Format development and retail change: supermarket retailing and the London
Co-operative Society
Abstract
This article argues that students of retail history need to give more attention to the
idea of the retail format. Employing a conceptualisation of the format recently
presented in contemporary retail studies, it reveals the importance of so-called
“offering” and “know-how” components to a fuller understanding of the development
of the supermarket format in post-war Britain. Supermarket development is shown to
be affected by, and itself impact on, a complex interplay of factors. Arguments
presented in the article are supported by a detailed examination of supermarket
development at the London Co-operative Society between 1960 and 1965. The paper
thus also contributes to our knowledge of the history of co-operative retailing in the
post-war period.
Key Words:
Supermarket, self-service retailing, retail format, co-operative societies, retail change
Introduction
Insufficient attention is given to the concept of the retail format and to the insights
that it can offer to the study of retail history. The term “format” is frequently used in a
simple manner in order to identify the broad retail store type of interest. Only
occasionally are definitions of particular formats contested, perhaps most notable
being the case of the department store.1 One implication of this lack of attention is
3
that variations within broad format types are inadequately addressed. Consequently,
we know insufficient detail about the development and management of formats by
particular retail firms. Another is that the impact of format change for wider, inter-
firm relations and processes, such as those occurring in the supply chain, are
overlooked. This study provides a detailed evaluation of one retailer’s development of
the supermarket format. It does so not in an attempt to identify the first or purest form
of the format.2 Instead the paper argues that one characteristic of early supermarket
retailing was its diversity. The analysis is based upon a detailed reading of the archive
of the London Co-operative Society (hereafter LCS) supported by a review of the
trade and popular press. The paper draws upon discussions in the literature of
contemporary retail management as well as those in retail history.
In addition to highlighting the case for more attention to be given to the
concept of the format, the paper also contributes more broadly to our understanding of
co-operative society retailing during the post-war period (in this case roughly 1960-
1965). Recent historical research has explored general trends in early supermarket
adoption in the co-operative movement.3 The analysis of format development at the
society level represents a valuable addition to this, revealing as it does key retail
management issues at the local, trading level. It provides an opportunity for more
meaningful firm-level comparisons. By concentrating on events during the period
1960 to 1965 the paper explores the adoption of supermarket format innovation at a
time when its significance had become generally established. It provides a useful
contrast to studies that concentrate on the emergence of these innovations.4
The LCS was formed and developed through the amalgamation of a number of
London and regional co-operative societies extending its area of influence beyond the
capital into Middlesex, Essex, Hertfordshire and Surrey.5 It became the largest of the
4
UK co-operative societies with a membership of 1.25 million people.6 The archive,
held at the Bishopsgate Institute, London, holds a large collection of material covering
the range of the society’s activities, including political and educational aspects as well
as those of retail trading. It is the latter that is the focus here, although care is taken to
avoid artificially separating the retail business of the society from its wider
organisational underpinnings as the latter also inform our understanding. That part of
the LCS archive related to the retail trades is itself considerable in scope. It includes
numerous minute books and papers from the management committee and sub-
committees across the range of the society’s retail trade including chemists and
department stores as well as the food trades that are the focus here. Management of
the LCS’s retail operations was based upon a structure of an elected management
committee (or board), supporting management subcommittees and a professional
management executive. Of the subcommittees “Number 2” is of most interest in this
study, its remit including the society’s food trades. The study focuses largely on the
period 1960-1965. The starting date is broadly co-incident with the emergence of
supermarket development activities at the LCS. By 1965 the LCS was trading from
three purpose-developed supermarkets, and the first signs of their profitability were
being recorded its financial analyses.
The remainder of the paper is structured into four sections. In the next section
the notion of the retail format is discussed and related to debates surrounding the
growth of supermarket retailing in Britain. Following this, the paper provides a brief
review of the development of self-service retailing and the supermarket format by the
LCS. The main section of the paper assesses the society’s deliberations over and
engagement with key aspects of the supermarket format. Discussion is organised
around so-called “offering” and “know-how” format characteristics of the
5
supermarket. The paper ends by highlighting the key conclusions drawn from the LCS
case.
The supermarket as a retail format
Retail formats are complex combinations of visible and hidden components. This
helps to explain why it can be difficult for the outside observer to identify new retail
formats with precision, develop clear definitions of even the main types and gain
consensus for these definitions. This is certainly the case for supermarkets which
emerged in Britain during the 1950s. A basic trade definition of the supermarket was
in circulation by the early 1960s that considered ‘a supermarket is a store of not less
than 2, 000 sq. ft. sales area, with three or more checkouts and operated mainly on
self-service, whose range of merchandise comprises all food groups, including fresh
meat and fresh fruit and vegetables, plus basic household requisites (i.e. soaps and
cleaning materials).’7 However, in the earliest post-war years of self-service retailing
what constituted a supermarket was less clearly articulated even among interested
parties. One reason is because much early self-service retailing and shopping took
place through converted grocery outlets of varied size and make up; many being far
smaller and carrying a much narrower product assortment than what eventually came
to be recognised as supermarkets. Comparisons with supermarket retailing in the US
also led to ambiguities.8 The typical supermarket of 1950s America was some 18 000
square feet (1620 m2) in size, with the largest stocking in excess of 10 000 articles.
9
The first supermarkets developed in Britain were much smaller in size, a fact reflected
in the 2 000 sq. ft. minimum sales area adopted as a benchmark in early attempts to
6
define the format. As late as 1967 it was suggested that the typical supermarket in
Britain was only some 4 000 sq. ft. in size.10
Trade definitions such as the one presented above consider only those
components of a format that are visible at the outlet, in this case store size, shopping
environment and service type and product assortment. No attention is given to more
hidden factors or to those which occur away from the outlet, such as the systems
supporting the stores and the operating firm’s organisational structure and
management culture. This is problematic because the nature of firms’ format
variations, and their success or otherwise in operating formats, are also influenced by
such systems, structures and cultures.
Lewison highlights the importance of the format to retail competition:
‘Competitive advantages are realized by creating a retail format that is tailored to
specific needs of a carefully determined segment of the total market. Retail formats
(the means) encompass the total mix of operating and merchandising tactics and
practices used by the retail firm to distinguish and differentiate itself from other
competing retail formats.’11
Formats can be seen as ‘combinations of technologies’
and retailing involves the bundling of these technologies in ways considered most
appropriate for the marketplace.12
Viewing them in this way can help us to understand
format variation. In a more detailed consideration of the nature of the format,
Goldman views it as consisting of two parts: the offering (external) and the know-how
(internal).13
The first includes elements such as product assortment, shopping
environment, service, location and price. The second part, the know-how, he
considers to determine a retailer's operational strength and strategic direction. It
consists of the retail technology dimension (the systems, methods, procedures and
techniques the retailer uses) and the retail culture (including the repertoire of
7
concepts, norms, rules, practices and experiences).14
In contrast to some recent
interpretations that have restricted attention to the elements visible to the consumer,
this paper adopts Goldman’s fuller conceptualisation.15
In doing so it is possible to differentiate better and to account for variations
within as well as between broad format types. Hence the various supermarket type
formats appearing can be better understood, avoiding their development being too
simply characterised as that of one homogenous form. This is important as a close
reading of the history of self-service retailing in post-war Britain reveals the very
different offers put before the consumer.16
The LCS and the “modernization” of retailing
Recent studies have contributed to our understanding of the development of self-
service retailing and supermarket outlets in post-war Britain and their impact on
consumer practices.17
The innovative role of the co-operative movement is revealed,
with the LCS’s experimental conversion of its Romford grocery branch to self-service
in 1942 widely remarked upon.18
By 1950 there were some 50 or so supermarkets
operating in Britain, and the co-operative movement was at the vanguard of their
development.19
Yet by 1961, when the number of supermarkets had swollen to an
estimated 572,20
the dominance of the co-operative movement was being eroded by
the private multiples.21
Less attention has been given to the co-operative’s place in
this latter phase of supermarket development.
Between 1957 and 1961 the co-operative movement suffered a 1 per cent
decline in its share of total retail trade. The private multiples had increased their share
8
of the food trades market in particular.22
At a time of reduced margins the need for co-
operative societies to more rapidly adopt the supermarket was very clear. Supermarket
development could help to lower labour costs and to increase profits by means of
higher turnover. They could also provide the superior outputs that consumers were
quickly becoming accustomed to. The complexities and challenges such adoption
posed were also clear. These included obtaining the finance necessary to acquire
appropriate sites and develop the new larger stores, finding and training appropriate
staff at both the management and operational levels at a time of general labour
shortage and employing the retail management approaches required for successful
supermarket trading. In a letter to co-operative societies from the Co-operative Union,
the National Executive of the Co-operative Grocery Trade Association and
Development Committee made clear their advice that, wherever practicable, societies
should adopt the new low cost techniques of food retailing. It stressed ‘A supermarket
is not only a building, but a machine for selling goods. It must be properly operated if
the best results are to be obtained. Price structures and practices based on smaller
shops are often wrong for supermarkets.’23
Despite its considerable size, the LCS was a society in trading difficulties by
the late 1950s and was portrayed as epitomising an increasing malaise in co-operative
retailing as a whole. When the newspaper The People launched its wide-ranging
attack on co-operative retailing entitled “The Dying Giant in Your High Street” it paid
particular attention to the performance of the LCS. It reported that the society had
suffered a decline in food sales despite British consumers’ food expenditure rising by
10 per cent overall between 1957 and 1960. Furthering its attack, the paper used the
society’s West Ealing grocery branch to undertake a basket price comparison with a
nearby private multiple. Claiming a significant saving available at the latter it
9
suggested that the co-operative lacked the variety of bargains that the multiple could
offer.24
The co-operatives response to The People article rehearsed arguments of
propagandist attacks on democratic socialists and sought to rebut many of the claims
made.25
However the movement knew that overall there was much to be done. After
all, less than four years previously the Co-operative Independent Commission had
voiced concern that ‘if we ask what is the “image” of a Co-operative shop in the
public mind, the answer will not be a supermarket or a new department store.’26
In the
case of the LCS the stiff retail competition provided by the grocery multiples’
supermarkets in London and the need for rapid modernisation across its food retail
store network was beyond denial. It became one focus of an increasingly bitter
struggle for the overall control of the LCS.27
One protagonist in the struggle, future
society President John Stonehouse28
remarked on the need to modernise the society’s
food store network in 1961, ‘We have lost time and we have lost the dynamic… If we
are content to merely allow our organisation to tick over as it has been doing, we shall
find ourselves well and truly outstripped within the next decade.’29
The fall in the LCS’s food trades market share during the last years of the
1950s and the early years of the 1960s mirrored in trend, if surpassed in extent, a
general decline in the co-operative movement’s share of the retail food trades.
Turnover in the LCS’s grocery department had declined sharply from £16m in 1957 to
14.7m by 1960 and further to 13.5m by 1962.30
Falling LCS turnover came at a time
when typical grocery margins were under increased pressure from new high turnover,
low margin ways of selling employed by the supermarket operators. A large network
of counter-service grocery outlets meant that the LCS endured higher labour costs
than many of its competitors. Raised margins set by the society to meet these costs
were increasingly untenable. The advertising agency giant Batten, Barton, Durstine &
10
Osborn (hereafter BBDO), hired by the LCS during the early 1960s, produced a
controversial report on the society’s progress in 1961 concluding that the society was
facing labour costs that would prove ruinous unless it set out on a development
strategy based upon larger retail units and their benefits of new self-service techniques
and improved productivity.31
Net profit in the LCS’s grocery department fell from
£661 292 in 1960 to £27 065 in 1962.32
The society’s dividend, which had been 9d in
1957, fell to 4d during 1961.
Despite its early experimentation with self-service, the LCS faced clear
challenges in converting its large counter-service grocery outlet infrastructure to self-
service methods. Far more considerable difficulties came in attempts to adopt
supermarket retailing. By 1960 there were only 62 self-service stores and 19 food
halls from a total of 409 grocery stores across the society.33
By 1961 the number of
self-service stores in the society’s portfolio had grown to 120 with an additional 24 of
the larger self-service food halls.34
These store numbers meant that the LCS had more
self-service stores than many other large co-operative societies, such as the Royal
Arsenal and Birmingham societies, yet they represented a much lower proportion of
the overall store network.35
Similarly, the LCS was not too dissimilar in terms of total
number of stores operating on self-service basis to its private multiple rivals Victor
Value (191) and Tesco (211), but again these competitors had far fewer counter-
service stores.36
It was somewhat belatedly in 1961 that the society set down a more
comprehensive programme for self-service retailing. Importantly this included
discussions of plans for nine proposed supermarket development schemes.37
By this
date rivals such as Premier (Express Dairy), Fine Fare and Victor Value among others
had already established supermarkets in the LCS trading area.
11
Supermarket development was one focus of each of the main groups of
protagonists for election to the LCS management executive in 1962. The election
statement of the controlling London Co-operative Members’ Organisation (hereafter
LCMO) group announced that they sought to double overall retail trade within ten
years, whilst also stressing the need to improve working conditions for the society’s
employees. Key to the revitalisation of the grocery trade was plans to convert all
remaining grocery shops to self-service and to re-group existing food outlets into
more comprehensive food halls wherever possible. Most significantly, there was to be
an accelerated supermarket development plan with existing supermarket
developments to be completed and complemented by a further fifty such stores.38
The ultimately successful 1960 Campaign Committee put forward its case for
election of its members to the management committee based around a retail trades
plan very broadly similar to the LCMO’s in that it included a two-prong strategy of
improving staff conditions and modernising the retail infrastructure. Supermarket
development was again central, although the 1960 Campaign Committee declined to
put a precise figure on store numbers going forward. At the same time it challenged
the ruling LCMO over factory closures and the closing of ‘uneconomic’ shops. Under
headings such as ‘Competition must be met’, ‘New look for our Stores’ and ‘Modern
methods are a “must”’ the Campaign Committee’s election pamphlet launched a
strong attack on the managing LCMO, accusing it of overseeing many years of costly
delay in the modernisation of the society’s shops and stores.39
Pressure was required,
it argued, to ensure that the controlling group’s recently announced and ambitious
development programme was carried out. The Campaign Committee stressed its
credentials to manage any such modernisation by arguing the need for new stores to
be supported by modern buying procedures and store operations. In short, one of the
12
key aims of the committee was, it stated, ‘to build up the public image of the Society
as go-ahead and highly efficient.’ 40
‘Offering’ (external) elements of the supermarket format
This section of the paper considers the offering (external) elements of the supermarket
format. The next section considers the know-how (internal) elements. In combination
they comprise the main components of the retail format as noted by Goldman.41
The
path to adoption of the supermarket format by the LCS and the extensive management
deliberations that accompanied this are considered with reference to this
conceptualisation. So too are the particular characteristics of the society’s supermarket
units and the operations employed therein. Use of this fuller conceptualisation enables
us to make sense of the developments occurring and to distinguish within the broad
format type of the supermarket. In particular it enables us to identify and distinguish
between the society’s prototypical large format self-service retailing in the food halls
and the movement to purpose-developed supermarkets. In reality the internal and
external components of the format are inter-mixed of course. However, for purposes
of clarity and illustration the various elements that make up the format are considered
separately here.
The first offering element for consideration is “Location”. Supermarket
developments during the study period were typically located in or close to town centre
locations and loci of suburban shoppers. Dealing with external considerations such as
town planning restrictions could slow development, as in the case of the LCS’s
Loughton supermarket.42
Acquiring much-sought-after shop sites on or near to the
13
rapidly emerging municipal housing developments was also a challenge, although in
the case of the London County Council area at least the co-operative was given
reasonable access to new sites.43
The society’s existing infrastructure of smaller
grocery, butcher’s and fruit and vegetable shops in many ways represented a
hindrance to the modernisation of the food trades through supermarket operations.
First, many were too small for conversion to supermarket formats containing a range
of non-food as well as food items, or even to larger self-service food retailing through
food halls.44
Second, as discussed below, others were in locations considered
unsuitable for redevelopment with such formats.45
As a consequence the society faced
potentially significant exit sunk costs in seeking to dispose of their small counter-
service units and adopt new trading methods in larger supermarket outlets. Faced with
market rental costs described by the society’s grocery department manager as being
‘terrificly high’,46
financing the acquisition of new sites suitable for supermarket
development was difficult. So too was meeting the cost of redeveloping existing sites
for supermarket trading. Thanks to its extensive property portfolio the society could
point to an advantage over some of the less well capitalised rivals emerging in the
market,47
but like the movement as whole it was bound by its practice of distributing
capital surplus, particularly though the dividend. As Sparks notes in his review of
post-war consumer co-operation, the result of this approach has been that ‘in a
situation where locations have changed, and the price of developing retail outlets has
… rocketed, many societies have found themselves under capitalised.’48
The LCS was
no different in this regard.49
Perhaps unsurprisingly the LCS’s first supermarket was
developed on a site converted from use as a small drapery store.50
One upshot of the society’s existing infrastructure of smaller shops across the
food trades was the attempt, where conditions permitted, to physically combine two or
14
more adjacent shops into new larger self-service food halls. Whilst not initially
carrying much in the way of non-food, these halls provided an extended array of food
goods in a larger, more attractive self-service store environment. The LCS had 24
such food halls by 1961 and placed emphasis on them in their store development
plans of the early 1960s. By 1965 it had 6 halls that it considered in size and turnover
to be essentially similar to a supermarket.51
Further discussion on the society’s
development of the food hall format is provided below.
When the LCS did eventually embark on developing supermarkets in the early
1960s, like other retailers it faced challenges in gaining the necessary management
expertise to ensure efficient store location research and assessment. In their review of
this aspect of LCS operations BBDO concluded that, overall, the processes of store
research and development were ‘amateur and old fashioned’ and that ‘too many of
your stores are in the wrong places, too many of your new stores and conversions are
not good enough and too much money is locked up in unproductive real estate.’52
According to BBDO, what was needed was a new store research and development
unit along the lines of those run by the private multiples and utilising the services of
outside professionals such as architects, supermarket planners and property
developers.53
The development of the LCS’s second supermarket at Loughton, which
opened to much fanfare in 1962, illustrates the challenges faced in opening innovative
new supermarket stores. The store was extremely large by standards of the day, with
the 28 165 sq ft site providing 15 250 sq feet of selling space.54
The new store, it was
reported, was expected to draw trade from a thickly populated area between
Leytonstone in the South and Harlow in the North, with the Debden housing estate
being a short bus ride away.55
However, within a year serious concerns were being
15
raised about the performance of the store. With sales reportedly below those needed
for profitability, executives began to view the store as being too large for its
‘comparatively thinly surrounding population’.56
As a consequence plans were made
for the alternative use of 40 per cent of the store’s space for heavy furnishing goods
and for a pharmacy to be brought in, both elements under separate control from the
supermarket.57
The store was reported as being profitable for the first time in the
society’s balance sheet for the year ending January 1966.58
“Shopping Environment and Service” is the second offering element for
discussion. Remarking upon the opening of the LCS’s first self-service store in 1942,
the then food trades manager recalled that the society was keen to find out four things:
would the customer pick up their own goods; could the LCS get higher through put
from the staff; was it possible to use less experienced assistants; and could pilfering
be guarded against?59
By the 1960s the retail management challenges of self-service
trading in supermarkets were more substantial as firms competed to offer the shopper
more innovations. A research report by J. Walter Thompson noted of the “housewife”
on a shopping trip ‘Inside the supermarket she is in a new and exciting, although to
some people a confusing, atmosphere. She may shop to music or relayed sales
messages; and she is confronted with new products, daily bargains, unusual form and
colour combinations in packaging and increasingly sophisticated methods of
display.’60
In this environment of product and service innovation and spectacle even
the newly converted self-service outlets of the LCS were the subject of some critical
scrutiny.
BBDO, for example, reported that among co-operative members and non-
members alike more thought the society’s stores ‘less up to date’ than competitors’
stores than those considering ‘them more up to date’. This, it was suggested, may
16
have reflected the view that the co-operative movement as a whole had an old
fashioned ‘cloth cap’ look to it.61
Whatever the cause this perception was problematic
because shopping environment and service were obviously important to shoppers in
their choice of store. The society’s newer self service stores were generally considered
an improvement over its more traditional counter service outlets, but some shoppers
thought they compared poorly to the competitors’ large supermarkets, being less
roomy and less well organised. As one non LCS member is reported as saying of their
self-service stores ‘As they’re not as big as the supermarkets they don’t seem to carry
much stock – or they give that impression as they’re smaller.’ Another stated
‘supermarkets are much better because they’re more roomy.’62
Similar shopper
sentiments were aired when the contest for managerial control of the LCS made the
national media in 1963. In a script for the BBC’s Panorama television programme
one shopper is quoted ‘well, I don’t know in what way, they just don’t compare with
other shops, with the supermarkets, they’re just not quite so attractive to go into as the
supermarkets.’63
However, for some shoppers the private multiples’ supermarkets
were not the pinnacle to aim for. As one occasional shopper at the LCS’s new self-
service outlets reported to BBDO ‘The local one is very nice. It’s well laid out, easy
to find things. It’s less garish than other supermarkets. It doesn’t push itself to the
same extent. The co-op always has dignity.’64
The LCS first supermarket proper opened on August 19th
1962 at Becontree.
Understandably the society made much of its new 3 000 square foot supermarket. But
the reviewer from the trade press Grocers’ Gazette was far from overawed by the new
development. The store, it was argued, was comparatively small and it was noted that
the LCS already had larger food halls in operation. Aisles were criticised as being too
narrow, leading to congestion, and the departmental layout was not typical of the
17
latest design. Commenting on advertisement features placed in local press
supplements by the society, the author for the Gazette could find little evidence to
support claims of this development being the result of an ‘adventurous LCS…’ or
representing ‘shopping revolutions’.65
It was the LCS’s opening of what was reported
to be the capital’s largest supermarket at Loughton three months later that signalled
their ambition to use the modern format to its fullest potential. Here reviews were
more positive, seemingly impressed by its 150 foot covered frontage and sheer scale,
and noting innovations in gondola arrangement and the attempt to present an ‘open
market atmosphere’.66
Complimentary reports suggested that having parked the pram
at the large pram park, the shopper could push her two tier trolley around the vast
store to the sound of piped music, observing the deep price cuts that abound and all
the while confident that the store has a commissionaire to ‘keep an eye on junior’.67
We now turn to the issue of “Product Assortment”; the third of Goldman’s
offering components. As the Financial Times remarked, ‘While the supermarkets are
busily working to acquire the knowledge [of how to sell non-food items], the Co-ops
individually possess long experience over the whole range of consumer goods’.68
This
was certainly true. Societies also enjoyed the supply chain infrastructure provided by
the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS). While the full potential of the
relationship between the movement’s production, wholesale and retail parts was far
from realised69
, co-operatives were notionally in a strong position to meet the
increasingly wide assortment of products being offered in the newest and largest of its
rivals’ supermarkets.
The reality was a mixed affair. In a review of supermarket retailing across the
movement in 1962 the Co-operative News remarked on the continued heavy reliance
on trade in grocery, cigarettes and tobacco, noting that about one third of its
18
supermarkets did not yet sell non-food. Stores with an average of 4 000 sq feet
typically had about 60 per cent of their floor area devoted to grocery goods alone. In
smaller self-service outlets the figure rose to 70 per cent.70
The absence of non-food in
many “supermarkets” sat uncomfortably with much modern practice and with the
CWS’s view of what a modern supermarket should look like. In a letter sent to
societies in early 1961 it had explained that ‘In light of contemporary trends the CWS
Board feels that typical co-operative supermarket should have a minimum sales area
of 4000 sq ft and sell groceries, provisions, fresh fruit, vegetables fresh meats, a
selected range of household requisites and other dry goods.’ 71
The LCS’s purpose-designed supermarkets seemingly met many of the
criteria. The opening of the Becontree store revealed a selection of towels, toasters,
electric fires, toys, china and glass for sale. Its manager was keen to boast that as a
result of the society’s dry goods department he could get some non-food goods he
wanted into store within 24 hours.72
The society’s third supermarket, opened in
Walthamstow in September 1963, was arranged on an approximately 90/10 spilt (food
to non-food) with non-foods being focussed around easily carried clothing items.73
The opening of the Loughton supermarket took the LCS’s attempts to combine food
and non-food trading under one supermarket roof to another level. Approximately half
of the 15 000 sq ft trading hall was devoted to foodstuffs and the remainder given
over to non-foods.74
In addition to the food department with large deep freeze and
delicatessen sections, advertisements for the store remarked on its extensive range of
non-food goods including a fashion department, linen and kitchenware, soft
furnishings, electrical goods, health and beauty, record bar and gifts and toys.75
Yet it
is also instructive to consider the subsequent sales performance of the various
supermarket departments. Grocery unsurprisingly dominated sales in all three
19
supermarkets, but the performance reported for “dry goods” was at best modest. In the
two smaller supermarkets at Becontree and Walthamstow dry goods were typically far
outsold in value by tobacco products.76
Like other co-operative societies the LCS pursued a strategy of developing
larger self-service food halls, both stand alone and within its department stores.77
Combining two or more of the main food trades, the society’s food halls provided the
shopper with a wider product assortment than many of its smaller self-service grocery
outlets. Yet the combination of previously separate food trades units posed
merchandising and other problems. During a period of accelerated conversions in
1962 a deputation of the society’s fruit and vegetable managers met with the Food
Trades Manager to raise concerns over the integration of previously separate units
into food halls. Included among these were what they considered the frequent lack of
adequate product preparation space, shoppers’ lack of acceptance of pre-packaged
products that were crucial to self-service operations and their dislike of having ‘to
wander around the rest of the Food Hall’ to reach the exit, and the high sales targets
placed on the newly integrated units. The deputation suggested that it was perhaps
better if only the unprofitable fruit and vegetable operations be combined into food
halls. Acknowledging some of the difficulties and limitations in current hall design,
the society’s Food Trades Manager was nonetheless driven to remark upon the
apparent “departmentalism” he perceived in some of the discussions.78
Typical early food halls lacked a significant non-food component.
Consequently the food hall concept seemed increasingly moribund as the full
supermarket format evolved among competitors and the LCS sought to introduce an
increasing range of non-foods into the halls.79
By 1963 the society was forced to
20
accept the far greater popular appeal of the term “supermarket”, and chose to adopt it
for all stores over 2 000 sq feet and to promote them to the public as such.80
The fourth offering component “Price” represented an increasingly important
element of the supermarket. Surveys of shoppers’ attitudes to the supermarket
undertaken during the early 1960s stressed the advantages they offered in terms of
providing a one stop shop, a hygienic shopping environment and a time saving
shopping experience.81
Lower prices in supermarkets were less strongly reported as a
particular advantage, perhaps in part due to interviewees wishing to provide socially
desirable answers. Only 13 per cent of J. Walter Thompson’s survey of almost 1400
women shoppers reported lower prices as a particular advantage of the supermarket
format.82
One woman’s response was ‘You have to watch prices, though. In the
supermarket they’re not always cut-price’.83
This was certainly true in some cases, but price competition had increasingly
become a part of the supermarket’s impact. Resale Price Maintenance had virtually
broken down in grocery by 1959, and its demise had started somewhat earlier in the
highly competitive London market.84
In 1958 the LCS had seen the need to launch a
“price-attraction” policy, selling fast moving grocery products below normal prices in
response to the price cutting of the supermarkets.85
However, sustaining this price
competition was problematic due to the greater costs incurred by the LCS’s food retail
operations. Whilst the LCS believed that their supermarket rivals operated on costs of
2s 6d in the £ or less, comparable figures for the LCS were reported as 3s 2d
(grocery), 4s 6d (butchery) and 4s 10d (fruit and vegetables).86
BBDO’s research findings pointed to significant weaknesses in consumer’s
reaction to the LCS offer on price. Surveying both members and non-members the
report found that the LCS was perceived by the vast majority to be similar or higher in
21
price to rival multiples. Members and non members alike thought that the private
multiples offered the lowest prices, with Sainsbury, Victor Value and Tesco
frequently mentioned as being the cheapest for groceries.87
BBDO reported that 60
per cent of the more than 530 members questioned claimed to use another (non LCS)
store most often for their groceries.88
Following a change of management control of the LCS in 1962, the result of
the bitter struggle between the 1960 Campaign Committee and the vanquished
LCMO, the society set about plans to compete better against the private multiples,
particularly the supermarket retailers.89
Conspicuous among these was the adoption of
an aggressive and flexible pricing policy, with regional and area co-ordinators
empowered to make price cuts and selected discounts to meet the competition of
private multiples in their area on a shop by shop basis.90
In October 1962 the society
launched an “instant dividend” at its self-service stores and a guaranteed 6d dividend
at other shops.91
However, the instant dividend was restricted to larger self-service
stores by 1963.92
Its reduction and ultimate demise came amid considerable acrimony
between rival groups on the society’s management board, including contested
allegations as to members’ commitment to the on-going modernisation of the retail
trades and dispute over the society’s actual trading performance.93
It was into this highly price competitive London market that the LCS
opened its first supermarkets, competing against large private multiples able to sustain
low margin trading. The society sought to heavily promote the price competitiveness
of each of its supermarkets of course. Its paper Citizen stressed that the Loughton
supermarket was about providing value for shoppers and noted the deep price cuts
available on a number of lines.94
Similarly, in an allusion to the street markets
operating close to the Walthamstow supermarket, the supermarket’s manager stressed
22
to readers of the local press that shoppers at his store could enjoy hygienic food
retailing together with ‘barrow boy prices’ without the discomfort of street trading.95
Yet this need for heavy discounting and price competition provides some explanation
for the fact that all of the LCS supermarkets recorded net losses during their initial
years of trading. As the society’s Chief Accountant noted in his report for the year
ending 1964, despite rising sales ‘to date …the supermarket venture has been a
complete failure; the trade achieved has been inadequate in view of the low gross
profit rate, the wage cost and the high overheads following the heavy capital cost’.96
Yet the report went on to suggest that the LCS was not alone in finding difficulties
with supermarket profitability in 1963 and argued that across the trade there was
evidence of the impact of ‘low-price selling’ on supermarket profitability. Based on
this, a somewhat brighter outlook of reduced loss-leading activities and gently upward
margins was forecast for the middle years of the 1960s.
The final offering component for consideration is “Marketing and Promotion”.
In an attempt to promote a new image and the aggressive pricing policies of the LCS,
BBDO’s public relations firm PDA was engaged to handle a major LCS advertising
and publicity campaign.97
Their UK head concluded ‘We’ll go out and knock spots of
John Cohen and his supermarket chain.’98
Television and press advertisements were
designed to push the new message of the LCS under the general slogan ‘Buy better for
less at the LCS’. An advertisement in the Evening Standard proclaimed ‘Check this
list carefully. It shows every London housewife how much she saves … at LCS self-
service shops. Our computers work it out at 10.7208%’.99
As we have seen, this was
supported by promotion of the price competitiveness of each of the society’s
supermarkets at the time of their opening.
23
Among other store outputs emphasis was placed on the convenience of having
food and non-food items under one roof in the supermarket. This was intended to
reflect emerging evidence that women food shoppers favoured the supermarket as it
could offer ‘all you want in one shop’.100
Unsurprisingly the new, very large
supermarket at Loughton was strongly promoted as a ‘shopping centre for the whole
family’.101
The Co-operative News announced ‘It’s everything for everybody in
London’s giant supermarket’.102
Yet, self-service shopping and the supermarket
format provided challenges as well as opportunities to the food shopper during the
1960s. For housewives seeking to meet their responsibilities for proficient shopping
switching to these new formats could create anxiety and required the nurturing of new
skills.103
Retailers sought to adopt the leitmotiv “modern” to reassure consumers. The
LCS was no different in this regard. For example, emphasis was placed on the theme
of modernity in promotional literature for the opening of the Stratford Food Hall in
spring 1962.104
Similarly, press supplements to advertise the new Becontree
supermarket reportedly spoke of ‘[the] supermarket of the future…’ and of ‘Advanced
American ideas…’105
The opening of the large Loughton supermarket later in the
same year was promoted with clear reference to one particular theme of the early
1960s. One advertisement announced ‘The LCS bring space-age shopping to
Loughton’.106
‘Know-How’ (internal) elements of the supermarket format
Know-how consists of “Retail Technology” and “Retail Culture” elements. In terms
of retail technology, which is discussed first, attention is focussed upon the important
24
issue of supply chain systems. The accelerated development of low margin, high
turnover retailing through larger self-service stores and supermarkets placed increased
pressure on supply chain systems and necessitated improvements in stock handling.
The financial press drew broad comparisons between the private multiples, lauded for
their ‘computer controlled stock systems and expert management’ and the systems
and processes of non-modernising co-operative societies.107
However, manufacturers
maintained a strong position in the distribution chain and played an increasingly
important role through rising direct to store delivery. Many major retailers’
distributions systems were in need of modernization.108
J. Sainsbury was reported to
openly acknowledge the dated nature of its distribution infrastructure compared to that
of its shops.109
The company set about investing in new distribution centres during the
early 1960s; the first opened in Basingstoke, Hampshire in 1964.
It was against this backdrop that in 1963 the Board of the CWS approached
societies about the introduction of its plan for regional distribution centres aimed to
introduce the “newest technologies” to the distribution system and reduce the costly
duplication of co-operative society warehouse infrastructure.110
The LCS was critical
of what it saw as a delay by the CWS in coming to terms with the need for revised
warehouse and distribution systems. Instead it suggested that the society should
proceed with its own warehouse project,111
the significance of supply chain
modernisation having been highlighted in an internal grocery department enquiry of
1963. This enquiry reported that the society’s warehousing capacity was out of
proportion with the demands placed upon it and set down plans to deal with this.112
Falling departmental sales and rising direct to store delivery from private
manufacturers meant that the society’s warehouses handled only 50 per cent of the
society’s retail trade.113
In relation to their organisation the report continued ‘(the)
25
present warehouse arrangements are not designed as a slave to the shops’ or laid out
with regard to the general need of the branches. As a consequence, the stock holding
areas of many branches were reported to be congested and inadequate for the
increased amount of pre-packaging occurring in store.
The poorly organised nature of the warehouses in relation to shop needs was
particularly problematic as self-service retailing necessitated the pre-packaging of
most foodstuffs. Whilst non-perishable foods came to the stores pre-packaged from
manufacturers and wholesalers, many perishables continued to be packaged in store
and in the case of fresh meat retailing this necessitated investment in specialised
cutting and preparation rooms.114
Management of the LCS grocery department
considered that the society should be mirroring sector trends toward more pre-
packaging taking place in central warehouses, but special provision was made in its
new supermarkets for extensive food preparation at the store. Whilst the trading area
of the society’s first purpose-developed supermarket at Becontree was comparatively
small at only 3 000 square feet, the store nonetheless provided an almost similar
amount of above-store warehousing space and a purpose-designed ground level
packaging room.115
Similarly, the later Walthamstow supermarket had a sales area of
4 700 square feet supported by a further 2 300 square feet of storage, preparation and
refrigeration space.116
The much larger Loughton supermarket had far more extensive
food preparation and pre-packaging areas, starting with its integrated butchery cutting
room that customers of its meat department could observe directly from the trading
floor.117
Behind this lay almost 6500 sq ft of warehousing and a 2650 sq feet loading
bay providing a ‘streamlined… supply operation.’118
Finally we consider “Retail Culture”, the second main know-how component
of the retail format. Discussions of the distinctive characteristics of the co-operative’s
26
management structure and of the tensions between the movement’s commercial and
ideological interests are well versed in recent literature.119
Such tensions came to the
fore in the electoral battles for control of the LCS management committee during the
early 1960s. Complicated by deep political divisions, the electoral contests resulted in
serious infighting between rival management lobbies, ultimately leading to legal
action. The political foundations of these contests are not the focus of this section.
Nonetheless their effects should not be underestimated in terms of their ability to
drawing focus away from the pressing needs for improved retail management.
Rapid growth of the private multiples’ share of the food market focussed
commentator attention on the differences in structure and organisational culture
between them and the co-operative societies. The issue was widely aired. Alongside
inflammatory press descriptions of ‘pig-headed committees that just talk, talk, talk
while the superstores steal their trade…’120
came rather more considered assessments
of the deficiencies of management in many co-operative societies in comparison to
that of the multiples.121
The LCS’s retail management structure increasingly came under attack from
‘modernisers’ from within and without. BBDO considered that to successfully
rejuvenate the food trades required a change of management. Indeed it asserted that
poor management was the main problem of the LCS’s food business; with new
management needed that is ‘good enough to run a £30m business…’122
BBDO
concluded further that such management needed the input of outside management
counselling. Similarly, in a notorious attack on the traditional management structure
of the LCS following a society visit to the Konsum co-operative in Stockholm, LCS
President Stonehouse remarked in the pages of The Grocer ‘due to historic
circumstances, the LCS control structure has grown into a rather complex bureaucracy
27
which tends to centralise detailed trading decisions, blunt initiative in the executive
ranks and delay action’. He continued, ‘In practice many officials prefer to shelter
behind committees rather than taking personal responsibility. The system encourages
timidity and inaction…’ 123
Such comments need to be read in the context of the on-
going bitter dispute and division among members of the LCS management board.
Nevertheless, the challenge of combining co-operative business efficiency with the
ethos of democratic control was the subject of more wide ranging enquiry at the
time.124
Planning for the development of supermarket trading itself required revisions
to management structures, with the existing sub-committee organisation considered
impractical for their management. Accordingly, the society’s Chief Officer and
Secretary set down plans for a “Supermarket Division”. Merchandise sold in the
supermarkets would be obtained through the existing buying organisation of the food,
dry goods and pharmacy departments but the division would operate independent of
these, recruiting its own staff and organising its own promotion and selling. It was
agreed that during the early phases of supermarket development the Assistant Chief
Officer and Secretary would have control and responsibility for these operations, thus
avoiding the need for the various sub-committees to be continuously consulted as the
business progressed.125
The possibility for tension between commercial and ideological interests could
also be manifest in the reactions of members and employees to the modernisation of
retailing through the adoption of large self-service units and supermarkets.126
For
some members of the movement the closure of smaller, economically inefficient yet
convenient society branches in local neighbourhoods in order to save costs, or to
make way for a proposed supermarket, was emblematic of the dangers of ill-managed
28
change and sat uncomfortably with their interpretation of the movement’s purpose.127
The closure of the LCS branch in Walthamstow, nearby its recently opened
supermarket, saw a petition of protest from the Walthamstow Women’s Guild to the
Co-operative Union demanding ‘… that it is kept open as a service to the members
especially the old and loyal ones’.128
The issue of shop closures was also raised in the
bitter row among members of the management committee. Stiffened resistance to
Stonehouse’s presidency reportedly led one member of the management committee to
draw parallels with the impact of Beeching on the railways and to argue that the
society should not continue closing branches without considering the social
consequences.129
The retailing practices employed in the society’s supermarkets were
also the subject of debate and disappointment for some members and their
representatives. Eleven months after the opening of the Loughton supermarket LCS
officials met with a deputation from Debden Loughton Co-operative Party to discuss
their concerns over the trading methods at the store. These included worries that the
range of CWS goods sold was too small, a related objection to the space given over to
promotion of private manufactured products and unhappiness that non-members
shopping at the store enjoyed the same benefits as members.130
Unsurprisingly there were diverse opinions across the movement, as well as
within societies, as to the means by which to best meet the challenges posed by the
private multiples’ supermarkets. The proposals of the LCS to compete through an
instant dividend drew a rather critical consideration in the official journal of the co-
operative movement Co-operative News. Such a policy, it was argued, diluted the
distinctive features of the co-operative and reduced its social purpose thus rendering it
no different than any private multiple.131
As Fulop noted, the dividend had an
emotional hold over co-operators at this time, its primacy remaining official co-
29
operative policy.132
The LCS’s Stonehouse argued that the co-operative movement as
a whole continued to pay insufficient attention to new methods in retailing despite
attempts to revise management structures of the Co-operative Union. He concluded,
‘We have not studied enough nor applied sufficiently the new techniques in retailing
including supplier relations, supermarket trading, non-food trading in supermarkets
and so on.’133
When members of the LCS hosted a conference “The Way Forward in
Retail Trading” its organiser Stonehouse claimed he had ‘no wish to interfere with
anything that is being done by the Union and its committees but it is very important
that societies should be able to meet and discuss problems that are with us all the time
and are developing week by week without waiting for Congress to come along.’134
Conclusions
The late 1950s and early 1960s were clearly a time of great challenge and difficulty
for the LCS’s food retailing operations. The growing emphasis on supermarket
development by the private multiples trading in the London area put considerable
pressure on the society’s place as a major player in the capital’s food retail market.
These supermarket retailers were working on downwardly revised margins and costs
in an environment of intensified competition for trade and labour. It was into this
arena that the LCS embarked upon its development of supermarket retailing
operations. The study offers us an insight into a period of learning for the society
about the supermarket format and its potential. Much of this learning was forced upon
the LCS. From the late 1950s onwards the society launched numerous price reduction
schemes designed to meet the threat posed by the multiples’ supermarkets as it
30
eventually hurried to develop its own such outlets. By 1963 the society made the
fundamental decision to use the term “supermarket” for all of its larger stores in an
attempt to attract customers desirous of the outputs they perceived such new store
types could offer.
Another manifestation of this period of learning about the supermarket
innovation is the diversity of large self-service stores initially operated by the society.
The earliest experiences of such operations came through the society’s food halls. As
non-foods were introduced into these halls the larger of these became effectively
supermarkets, being very much comparable to the society’s two smaller, purpose-
developed supermarkets. Turning to the supermarkets, in store size and offer the
contrast between the society’s first supermarket opened at Becontree and its second at
Loughton was marked. Trade press reviews portrayed Becontree as a small,
unexceptional supermarket and one that failed to live up to the society’s boasts of
‘shopping revolutions’. The Loughton store opened only three months later revealed
the real ambitions of the LCS to benefit from the new large format approach. The
history of supermarket development was not characterised by the roll out of a
homogenous store type; instead it was a “messy” process including much trial and
error. Nonetheless, the significance going forward of developing larger supermarkets
was clear.135
The use of a detailed conceptualisation of the format incorporating offering
and know-how components allows for a more comprehensive consideration of the
LCS management’s engagement with the supermarket format. It can also provide
some explanation for variations between the supermarket operations of private
multiples, independents and co-operative societies. The main focus here has been on
the co-operative society aspect. In relation to the offering components, it is clear that
31
the development of supermarkets provided new challenges in terms of the planning of
store locations, the design of store environments and their provision of service,
pricing strategy and wider marketing and promotion. In each of these domains
supermarket operations required changes from the practices adopted by the LCS for
both counter-service operations and more recently established smaller self-service
stores.
Know-how components of the format were more hidden to the customer but
were increasingly fundamental to the successful operation of supermarkets. In relation
to systems and procedures, this paper has placed emphasis on the pressures on supply
chain systems resulting from the development of larger, higher turnover stores. A
particular requirement during the study period was for more extensive food storage
and preparation areas. The paper has also revealed the significance of an appreciation
of the “retail culture” of the co-operative movement as a whole, and the LCS in
particular, to our understanding of the supermarket developments that occurred. The
often uneasy combination of enterprise and social goals that characterise the
movement was further uncovered by the challenges of retail modernisation during the
study period. The desire to maintain democratic principles of control proved very
problematic as practiced by the LCS during the study period. Of course the
management boards of many private multiples were themselves the source of
unproductive friction, but the in-fighting between rival management groups at the
LCS appears singularly bitter and certainly represented a distraction from the pressing
business at hand. The movement’s practices and norms in the distribution of capital,
both imposed and self-imposed, meant it faced particular difficulties in financing the
heavily capital intensive new store developments required. When the new stores were
opened the LCS, like other societies, could face criticism and dissatisfaction from
32
employees and shopper members alike. Again there is no suggestion that private
multiples were immune from such criticism, but the particular nature of the
cooperative movement and its effective ownership by members meant that it drove
further to the heart of retail societies deliberations on how to best meet the diverse
demands placed upon them going forward.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Stefan Dickers, Archivist at the Bishopsgate Institute, and his
colleagues for the assistance given in accessing materials from the LCS archive. I
would also like to acknowledge James Bell, School of Management, University of
Surrey for bringing to my attention some of the published literature on the co-
operative movement discussed in this article. The usual disclaimers apply.
33
Alexander, Andrew, Shaw, Gareth and Louise Curth. “Promoting Retail Innovation:
Knowledge Flows During the Emergence of Self-Service and Supermarket Retailing in
Britain.” Environment and Planning A 37, No.5 (2005): 805-821.
Alexander, Andrew, Phillips, Simon and Gareth Shaw. “Innovation and Shopping Practices:
Consumers’ Reactions to Self-Service Retailing.” Environment and Planning A, (2007)
advance online publication, doi:10.1068/a39117.
Au Yeung, Amelia Yuen Shan. “International Transfer of Retail Know-How Through Foreign
Direct Investment From Europe to China.” In The Internationalisation of Retailing in Asia,
edited by John Dawson, Masao Mukoyama, Sang Chul Choi and Roy Larke. London:
RoutledgeCurzon, 2003:136-154.
Birchall, Johnston. Co-op. The People’s Business. Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1994.
Bowlby, Rachel “Supermarket Futures.” In The Shopping Experience, edited by Pasi Falk and
Colin Campbell. London: Sage London, 1997: 92-110.
Bowlby, Rachel. Carried Away. The Invention of Modern Shopping. London: Faber and
Faber. London, 2000.
Brazda, Johann and Robert Schediwy, eds. Consumer Co-operatives in a Changing World.
Geneva: International Co-operative Alliance, 1989.
Co-operative Independent Commission. Co-operative Independent Commission Report.
Manchester: Co-operative Union Ltd, 1958.
34
Crossick, Geoffrey and Serge Jaumain. “The World of the Department Store: Distribution,
Culture and Social Change.” In Cathedrals of Consumption. The European department store
1850 – 1939, edited by Geoffrey Crossick and Serge Jaumain. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999.
Davies, Keri. “Applying Evolutionary Models to the Retail Sector.” The International Review
of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research 8, No. 2 (1998): 165-179.
Dawson, John Alan. “Innovation Adoption in Food Retailing. The Example of Self Service
Methods.” Service Industries Journal 1, No. 2 (1981): 22-35.
Dawson, John and Masao Mukoyama “The Increase in International Activity.” In Strategic
Issues in International Retailing, edited by John Dawson, Roy Larke and Masao Mukoyama.
Abingdon: Routledge, 2006.
Du Gay, Paul. “Self-Service: Retail, Shopping and Personhood.” Consumption, Markets and
Culture 7, No. 2 (2004):149-163.
Fulop, Christina Competition for Consumers. A Study of the Changing Channels of
Distribution. London: Andre Deutsch, 1964.
Goldman, Arieh. “Stages in the Development of the Supermarket.” Journal of Retailing 51,
No. 4 (1975/6): 49-64.
Goldman, Arieh. “The Transfer of Retail Formats into Developing Economies: The Example
of China.” Journal of Retailing 77, No. 2: 221-242.
35
Hallsworth, Alan and James Bell. “Retail Change and the United Kingdom Co-operative
Movement - New Opportunity Beckoning?” The International Review of Retail, Distribution
and Consumer Research 13, No. 3 (2003): 301-315.
Hutton, David. “Why did London Fail?” Journal of Co-operative Studies 56, April (1986):
56-9.
Humphery, Kim. Shelf Life. Supermarkets and the Changing Cultures of Consumption.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
J. Walter Thompson. Shopping in Suburbia. A Report on Housewives’ Reactions to
Supermarket Shopping. London: J. Walter Thompson Company Limited, 1963.
Jefferys, James Bavington. Retail Trading in Britain 1850 - 1950. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1954.
Lewison, Dale M. Retailing. London: Prentice Hall International (UK) Limited, 6th
international edn. 1997.
Mayo, James M. The American Grocery Store. The Business Evolution of an Architectural
Space. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1993.
McClelland, William Grigor. “Economics of the supermarket” The Economic Journal 72, No.
285 (1962): 154-170.
McKinnon, Alan C. “The Distribution Systems of Supermarket Chains.” The Service
Industries Journal 5, No. 2 (1985): 226-238.
36
Ostergaard, Geoffrey Nielsen and Albert Henry Power in Co-operatives. A Study of the
Internal Politics of British Retail Societies. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965.
Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC). The Economic Performance of
Self-Service in Europe. OEEC: Paris, 1960.
Pickering, John Frederick. Resale Price Maintenance in Practice. London: George Allen &
Unwin Ltd., 1966.
Resseguie, Harry E. “Alexander Turney Stewart and the Development of the Department
Store, 1823-1876” The Business History Review 39, No. 3 (1965): 301-322.
Richardson, William. The CWS in War and Peace, 1939-1976. Manchester: Co-operative
Wholesale Society Ltd., 1977.
Salmon, Bridget. “The ‘Real’ Retailing Revolution: The Impact of Self-Service Methods on
Food Retailing in Post-war Britain.” Paper presented at the Centre for History of Retailing
and Distribution (CHORD) Conference, University of Wolverhampton, 2006.
Saxena, S. K. and J. G. Craig. “Consumer Co-operatives in a Changing World.” Annals of
Public and Co-operative Economics 61, No. 4 (1990): 489-517.
Shaw, Gareth, Curth, Louise and Andrew Alexander. “Selling Self-Service and the
Supermarket: the Americanisation of Food Retailing in Britain, 1945-1970.” Business History
46, No. 4 (2004): 568-582.
37
Shaw, Gareth and Andrew Alexander “British Co-operative Societies as Retail Innovators:
Interpreting the Early Stages of the Self Service Revolution.” Business History 50, No. 1
(2008): 62-78.
Sparks, Leigh. “Consumer Co-operation in the UK 1945-1993: Review and Prospects.”
Journal of Co-operative Studies 79, February (1994): 1-64.
Stephenson, Thomas Edward. Management in Co-operative Societies. London: Heinemann,
1963.
Stonehouse, John. Death of an Idealist London: W.H. Allen, 1975.
Usherwood, Barbara. “‘Mrs Housewife and Her Grocer’: The Advent of Self-Service Food
Shopping in Britain.” In All the World and her Husband, edited by M. Andrews and M.
Talbot. London: Cassel, 2000: 113-130.
38
1 See for example Resseguie, “Alexander Turney Stewart”.
2 As Crossick and Jaumain argue in another context, such a search would be mistaken. Crossick and
Jaumain, “World of the Department Store”.
3 Shaw and Alexander, “British Co-operative Societies”.
4 Shaw et al., “Selling Self-Service”, Du Gay, “Self-Service”; ibid.
5 Bishopsgate Institute’s Collection Guide to the London Co-operative Society, no date.
6 Fulop, Competition for Consumers.
7 Self-Service and Supermarket Directory, 1961-1962 cited in McClelland “Economics of the
Supermarket”: 154; see also Times Supplement on Britain’s Food, Mar. 1959.
8 For a discussion of the stages in the evolution of the supermarket format in the US see Goldman,
“Stages in the Development”.
9 Mayo, American Grocery Store; OEEC, Economic Performance.
10 “The self service of Sainsbury’s” JS Journal July 1967, 11.
11
Lewison, Retailing: 141-42.
12 Davies, “Applying Evolutionary Models”; see also, Dawson and Mukoyama, “Increase in
International Activity”.
13 Goldman, “Transfer of Retail”.
14 Ibid. 223.
15 See, for example, Au-Yeung, “International Transfer”.
16 See also Shaw and Alexander, “British Co-operative Societies”; Salmon ‘“Real’ Retailing
Revolution”.
17 For studies focussing on aspects of retail change see Shaw et al., “Selling Self-Service”, Alexander et
al., “Promoting Retail”; Shaw and Alexander, “British Co-operative Societies”; For studies concerned
with the implications for consumer practices see Bowlby, “Supermarket Futures”; Carried Away;
Humphery, Shelf Life; Usherwood, “Mrs Housewife”; Du Gay, “Self-Service”; Alexander et al.,
“Innovation and Shopping”.
18 Fulop, Competition for Consumers; Shaw and Alexander, “British Co-operative Societies”.
19 Birchall, Co-op.
20 McClelland, “Economics of the Supermarket”.
21 See Fulop, Competition for Consumers; Dawson, “Innovation Adoption”.
39
22
Ostergaard and Halsey, Power in Co-operatives.
23 LCS Archive (hereafter LCSA): 132, LCS Chief Officer and Secretary’s Reports (March - Aug
1961) 28th Mar. 1961, Letter from Co-operative Union Ltd.
24 The People, 8 Jan. 1962.
25 Reynolds News and Sunday Citizen 14 Jan. 1962; Tribune, 19 Jan. 1962.
26 Co-operative Independent Commission Report, 45.
27 The elections for control of the LCS in the early 1960s are among the bitterest in co-op history. The
detail of the various political machinations behind these elections and their aftermath are relevant here
only in so far as they offer insight into the management of the retail food trades.
28 Stonehouse was Labour co-operative MP for Wednesbury (1957-1974). He served on the board of
the LCS 1956-1962, and as President 1962-64. Stonehouse was the successful London Co-operative
Members’ Organisation (LCMO) candidate for the presidency in the 1962 election, but the majority of
the board were drawn from the rival 1960 Campaign Committee.
29 LCSA: 306, No. 2 Sub-Committee reports (Sept. 1960 - Aug. 1961) 30 Jan. 1961 ‘The development
of the food trades department’.
30 LCSA: 1296, LCS research report (Vol. 1) Nov. 1962.
31 LCSA: 1295, LCS marketing study and recommendations, Nov. 1962.
32 LCSA: 1217, LCS explanations, reports and statements on the balance sheet (Sept. 1960-Jan. 1975),
Chief Accountant’s Board Report and Balance Sheet Year Ended 1 September 1962 (Financial
Analysis).
33 LCSA: ‘Box A-E’ Publications: LCS Always A Step Ahead, 1960. In addition the society operated
more than 350 butcher’s shops and fruit and vegetable outlets.
34 LCSA: ‘Box A-E’ Publications: LCS Always A Step Ahead, Dec. 1961.
35 The Grocers’ Gazette 3 Feb. 1962.
36 Ibid.
37 LCSA: P92, Interim Assessment of 1961 Development Programme.
38 The Times, 22 March 1962.
39 LCSA: ‘Box A-E’ Publications: The Giant in Your High Street, 1960 Campaign Committee, no date.
40 Ibid.
41 Goldman, “Transfer of Retail”.
40
42
LCSA: 132, LCS Chief Officer and Secretary’s Reports (Mar - Aug 1961), report of 15 Mar 1961.
43 Richardson, CWS.
44 Jefferys (1954) considered the co-operative movement to have entered the post-war period in an
advantageous position to the multiples as a result of its comparatively larger sized premises and
ownership of clusters of adjoining shops. Yet many of these were inadequate for redevelopment to
meet the supermarket standards of the mid-1960s. Jefferys, Retail Trading.
45LCSA: 1295, LCS marketing study and recommendations, Nov. 1962.
46LCSA: 177, LCS No 2 Sub-Committee Reports (Sept. 1961- Aug. 1962), Grocery departmental
manager’s report 18 June 1962.
47 LCSA: 1217 LCS explanations, reports and statements on the balance sheet (Sept. 1960-Jan. 1975),
Chief Accountant’s Board Report on Balance Sheet for Financial Period Ended 30 January 1965.
48 Sparks, “Consumer Co-operation”: 42.
49 Hutton “Why Did London Fail?”
50 Daily Worker, 24 Aug. 1962.
51 LCSA: 1217 LCS explanations, reports and statements on the balance sheet (Sept. 1960-Jan. 1975),
Chief Accountant’s Board Report on Balance Sheet for Year ended January 1966.
52 LCSA: 1295, LCS marketing study and recommendations, Nov. 1962.
53 Ibid.
54 Financial Times, 22 Nov. 1962; Walthamstow Post 16 Nov. 1962.
55 The Grocers’ Gazette 24 Nov. 1962.
56 LCSA: 132, LCS Chief Officer and Secretary’s Reports (Sept. 1962 -Jan. 1964), Report of Chief
Officer and Secretary’s Executive Group, no 11. 14 Oct. 1963.
57 LCSA: 175, No. 2 Sub-Committee reports (Jan. 1964 - Jan. 1965), 27 Jan. 1964.
58 LCSA: 1217 LCS explanations, reports and statements on the balance sheet (Sept. 1960-Jan. 1975),
Chief Accountant’s Board Report on Balance Sheet for Year ended January 1966.
59 Romford Times 31 Oct. 1962.
60 J. Walter Thompson, Shopping in Suburbia: 15
61 LCSA: 1297, LCS research report (Vol. 2) Nov. 1962. An earlier 1950 survey of co-operative
shoppers had shown “political” motives influenced only a very small proportion in their choice of store.
Co-operative News, 1950, cited in Fulop, Competition for Consumers.
41
62
LCSA: 1297, LCS research report (Vol. 2) Nov. 1962.
63 LCSA: P318 LCS Press Cuttings 18 Feb 1963 to 5 June 1963 Report no 4063 Transmitted on BBC
Panorama 29 April 1963.
64 LCSA: 1297, LCS research report (Vol. 2) Nov. 1962.
65 The Grocers’ Gazette, Aug. 18
th 1962.
66 The Grocers’ Gazette, Nov. 24
th 1962.
67 Co-operative News, 1 Dec. 1962; The Grocers’ Gazette 1 Dec. 1962; Citizen Dec. 1962.
68 Financial Times, 1 Oct. 1962; see also Daily Worker 24 Aug. 1962.
69 Richardson, CWS.
70 Co-operative News, 1 Dec. 1962.
71 LCSA: 131, LCS Chief Officer and Secretary’s Reports (Sept. 1960 - 1 Mar. 1961) Letter from
CWS, 12. Jan 1961.
72 Daily Worker, 24 Aug. 1962.
73 The Grocer, 14 Sept. 1963; Co-operative News, 21 Sept. 1963.
74 West Essex Gazette, no date.
75 Walthamstow Post, 16 Nov. 1962.
76 See for example LCSA: LCS No. 2 Sub-Committee Reports (Feb. 1965- July 1965), Report no. 1, 1
Feb 1965.
77 The LCS defined a food hall as a selling unit wholly or mainly organised on a self-service basis
achieving average weekly sales in excess of £3 000 and including two or more of the following main
food trades in each of which average weekly sales in excess of £300 are achieved: grocery and
provisions, including sweets and tobacco; butchery; fruit and vegetables; bread and flour;
confectionary. LCSA132: LCS Chief Officer and Secretary’s Reports (Mar 1961- Aug 1961). Report of
28 July 1961.
78 LCSA: 177, No. 2 Sub-Committee reports (Sept. 1961 to Aug. 1962) Memo from Food Trades
Manager’s Office 19 Mar. 1962.
79 LCSA: 132, LCS Chief Officer and Secretary’s Reports (Mar. 1961 – Aug. 1961) 5 July 1961,
‘Report on Danish Visit’.
80 LCSA: 302, LSC Committee of Management Minutes (“24”) (Jan. 1963 – Aug. 1964) Minutes of
Special Meeting of Committee of Management 26/27 Jan 1963.
42
81
J. Walter Thompson, Shopping in Suburbia.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid.: 17
84 Pickering, Resale Price Maintenance: 118; 121.
85 Times, 29 Sept. 1958.
86 LCSA: 395, No. 2 Sub-Committee reports (Sept. 1960 - Aug. 1961), report 30 Jan. 1961.
87 LCSA: 1296, LCS research report (Volume 2) Nov. 1962.
88 Ibid.
89 The LCS also met USDAW’s call for the introduction of a five-day, 40-hour week for shop workers,
matching the position of a few of the multiples. Times, 16 July 1962.
90 Daily Worker, 10 July 1962; Daily Express 16 July 1962.
91 For details see LCSA 177: No 2 Subcommittee reports (Sept. 1961- Aug. 1962) report 23 July 1962.
Also, LCSA 187: No. 2 Sub-Committee reports (Sept 1962 – Jan. 1964) report 29 Oct. 1962
92 LCSA: 302, LSC Committee of Management Minutes (“24”) (Jan. 1963 – Aug. 1964) Minutes of
Special Meeting of Committee of Management 26/27 Jan 1963. It was completely rescinded in 1964.
93 Financial Times 21 Feb 1963; Co-operative News 23 Mar. 1963; The Grocer 6 Apr. 1963; Daily
Telegraph 29 Apr. 1963; The Grocers’ Gazette 4 May 1963. For a commentary on this see Ostergaard
and Halsey, Power in Co-operatives.
94 Citizen, Dec. 1962.
95 Walthamstow Guardian, 6 Sept. 1963.
96 LCSA: 1217 LCS explanations, reports and statements on the balance sheet (Sept. 1960-Jan. 1975),
LCS Chief Accountant’s Board Report and Balance Sheet for Financial Period ended 25 January 1964
97 World’s Press News, 27 July 1962.
98 City Press, 24 Aug. 1962.
99 Evening Standard, 2 Oct. 1962. These were reported price reductions against manufacturers’ list
prices, not savings compared to rival retailers.
100 J. Walter Thompson, Shopping in Suburbia.
101 Walthamstow Post, 16 Nov. 1962.
102 Co-operative News, 1 Dec. 1963.
103 Usherwood, “Mrs Housewife”; Alexander et al., “Innovation and Shopping”.
43
104
Express, 6 Apr. 1962.
105 The Grocers’ Gazette, 18 Aug. 1962.
106 LCS Supplement to Express and Independent, no date.
107 Financial Times, 4 Sept. 1962.
108 McKinnon, “Distribution Systems”.
109 JS Journal, July 1967 “The self service of Sainsbury’s”.
110 Richardson, CWS: 249.
111 LCSA 187: No. 2 Sub-Committee reports (Sept 1962 – Jan. 1964) report 21 Oct. 1963.
112 LCSA 187: No. 2 Sub-Committee reports (Sept 1962 – Jan. 1964) special report on grocery
department 6 May 1963.
113 Ibid.
114 For a wider discussion of this see Merchandising Vision (British Cellophane Ltd.), Vol. 6 No. 5,
1961; Vol. 8 No. 5, 1963; Vol. 11 No. 1, 1966.
115 The Grocer, 18 Aug. 1962.
116 The Grocer, 14 Sept. 1963.
117 Walthamstow Post, 16 Nov. 1962.
118 The Grocers’ Gazette 24 Nov 1962; Co-operative News, 1 Dec. 1963.
119 Brazda and Schediwy, Consumer Co-operatives; Saxena and Craig, “Consumer Co-operatives”;
Hallsworth and Bell, “Retail Change”.
120 The People, 8 Jan. 1962.
121 Financial Times, 1 Oct. 1962.
122 LCSA: 1295, LCS marketing study and recommendations, Nov. 1962.
123 The Grocer, 6 Apr. 1963.
124 Stephenson, Management in Co-operative Societies; Ostergaard and Halsey, Power in Co-
operatives; see also Co-operative Independent Commission Report; Stonehouse, Death of an Idealist.
125 LCSA: 130, LCS Chief Officer and Secretary’s Reports (Sept. 1961 - Aug. 1962) report 16 May
1962. LCSA: 301, LCS Committee of Management Minutes (“23”) (Aug 1961 – Jan. 1963), Minutes
of meeting of Committee of Management, 30 May 1962.
126 For a discussion in relation to co-operative employees see Du Gay, “Self-Service”.
127 Fulop, Competition for Consumers; Sparks, “Consumer Co-operation”.
44
128
LCSA: 87, LCS Chief Officer and Secretary’s Reports (Jan 1964 - Jan 1965), report submitted by
Chief Officer and Secretary to Management Committee, 13 May 1964.
129 Sunday Times, 24 Feb. 1963. For a response from Stonehouse see Daily Telegraph 29 Apr. 1963.
130 LCSA 187: No. 2 Sub-Committee reports (Sept 1962 – Jan. 1964) report from 23 Sept. 1963.
131 Co-operative News, 13 Oct. 1962.
132 Fulop, Competition for Consumers.
133 Co-operative News, 20 Oct. 1962.
134 Ibid; also The Daily Express, 25 Oct. 1962.
135 LCSA: 1217 LCS explanations, reports and statements on the balance sheet (Sept. 1960-Jan. 1975),
LCS Chief Accountant’s Board Report and Balance Sheet for Financial Period ended 27 January 1968.
